In True Affection,
Unity is Complete
And Individual
Autonomy Is Preserved
Erich Fromm
Love
implies the use of a power that can only be developed in freedom
The desire for
interpersonal fusion is the most powerful striving in man. It is the most
fundamental passion, it is the force which keeps the human race together, the
clan, the family, society. The failure to achieve it means insanity or
destruction - self-destruction or destruction of others.
Without love, humanity could not exist for a day. Yet,
if we call the achievement of interpersonal union “love”, we find ourselves in
a serious difficulty. Fusion can be achieved in different ways - and the
differences are not less significant than what is common to the various forms
of love. Should they all be called love? Or should we reserve the word “love”
only for a specific kind of union, one which has been the ideal virtue in all
great humanistic religions and philosophical systems of the last four thousand
years of Western and Eastern history?
As with all semantic difficulties, the answer can only
be arbitrary. What matters is that we know what kind of union we are talking
about when we speak of love. Do we refer to love as the mature answer to the
problem of existence, or do we speak of those immature forms of love which may
be called symbiotic union? In the
following pages I shall call love only the former. I shall begin the discussion
of “love” with the latter.
Symbiotic union has its
biological pattern in the relationship between the pregnant mother and the
foetus. They are two, and yet one. They live “together”, (sym-biosis), they need each other. The foetus is a part of the
mother, it receives everything it needs from her; mother is its world, as it
were; she feeds it, she protects it, but also her own life is enhanced by it.
In the psychic symbiotic union, the
two bodies are independent, but the same kind of attachment exists
psychologically.
The passive
form of the symbiotic union is that of submission, or if we use a clinical
term, of masochism. The masochistic
person escapes from the unbearable feeling of isolation and separateness by making
himself part and parcel of another person who directs him, guides him, protects
him; who is his life and his oxygen, as it were. The power of the one to whom
one submits is inflated, may he be a person or a god; he is everything, I am
nothing, except inasmuch as I am part of him. As a part, I am part of
greatness, of power, of certainty. The masochistic person does not have to make
decisions, does not have to take any risks; he is never alone - but he is not
independent; he has no integrity; he is not yet fully born. In a religious
context the object of worship is called an idol; in a secular context of a
masochistic love relationship the essential mechanism, that of idolatry, is the
same. The masochistic relationship can be blended with physical, sexual desire;
in this case it is not only a submission in which one’s mind participates, but
also one’s whole body. There can be masochistic submission to fate, to
sickness, to rhythmic music, to the orgiastic state produced by drugs or under
hypnotic trance - in all these instances the person renounces his integrity,
makes himself the instrument of somebody or something outside of himself; he
need not solve the problem of living by productive activity.
The active form
of symbiotic fusion is domination or, to use the psychological term
corresponding to masochism, sadism.
The sadistic person wants to escape from his aloneness and his sense of
imprisonment by making another person part and parcel of himself. He inflates
and enhances himself by incorporating another person, who worships him.
The sadistic person is as dependent on the submissive
person as the latter is on the former; neither can live without the other. The
difference is only that the sadistic person commands, exploits, hurts,
humiliates, and that the masochistic person is commanded, exploited, hurt,
humiliated. This is a considerable difference in a realistic sense; in a deeper
emotional sense, the difference is not so great as that which they both have in
common: fusion without integrity. If one understands this, it is also not
surprising to find that usually a person reacts in both the sadistic and the
masochistic manner, usually toward different objects. Hitler reacted primarily
in a sadistic fashion toward people, but masochistically toward fate, history,
the “higher power” of nature. His end - suicide among general destruction - is
as characteristic as was his dream of success - total domination.[1]
In contrast to symbiotic union, mature love is union under the condition of
preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality. Love is an active power in man; a power which breaks through the
walls which separate man from his fellow men, which unites him with others;
love makes him overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet it permits
him to be himself, to retain his integrity. In love the paradox occurs that two
beings become one and yet remain two.
If we say love is an activity, we face a difficulty
which lies in the ambiguous meaning of the word “activity”. By “activity”, in
modern usage of the word, is usually meant an action which brings about a
change in an existing situation by means of an expenditure of energy. Thus a
man is considered active if he does business, studies medicine, works on an
endless belt, builds a table, or is engaged in sports. Common to all these
activities is that they are directed toward an outside goal to be achieved. What
is not taken into account is the motivation of activity. Take for
instance a man driven to incessant work by a sense of deep insecurity and
loneliness; or another one driven by ambition, or greed for money. In all these
cases the person is the slave of a passion, and his activity is in reality a
“passivity” because he is driven; he is the sufferer, not the “actor”. On the
other hand, a man sitting quiet and contemplating, with no purpose or aim except that of experiencing himself
and his oneness with the world, is considered to be “passive”, because he is
not “doing” anything. In reality, this attitude of concentrated meditation is
the highest activity there is, an activity of the soul, which is possible only
under the condition of inner freedom and independence. One concept of activity,
the modern one, refers to the use of energy for the achievement of external
aims; the other concept of activity refers to the use of man’s inherent powers,
regardless of whether any external change is brought about. The latter concept
of activity has been formulated most clearly by Spinoza. He differentiates
among the affects between active and passive affects, “actions” and “passions”.
In the exercise of an active affect, man is free, he is the master of his
affect; in the exercise of a passive affect, man is driven, the object of
motivations of which he himself is not aware. Thus Spinoza arrives at the statement
that virtue and power are one and the same.[2]
Envy, jealousy, ambition, any kind of greed are passions; love is an
action, the practice of a human power, which can be practiced only in freedom
and never as the result of a compulsion.
Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a
“standing in”, not a “falling for”.
NOTES:
[1] “Escape from Freedom”, E. Fromm, London, Routledge,
1942.
[2] Spinoza, “Ethics”, IV, Def. 8.
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On the role of
the esoteric movement in the ethical awakening of mankind, see the book “The
Fire and Light of Theosophical Literature”, by Carlos Cardoso Aveline.
Published in 2013 by The Aquarian
Theosophist, the volume has 255 pages and can be obtained through Amazon Books.
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